Student Instruction Sheet for

Travel Writing 90720 (3.1)

“On the Road” 4 Credits

This standard requires you to write a 600 word description about a travel experience that is suitable for publication in the travel section of a newspaper or magazine.Your travel description may include a description of a unique or memorable place, event, activity, or experience

  • “But I’ve never been anywhere exciting,” she protested.

You don’t need to have climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, snorkelled the Great Barrier Reef or walked the Great Wall of China to produce a captivating travel piece. You may wish to describe an international travel experience you have had but equally successful pieces can be produced from national or even local experiences. As Bill Bryson reminds us "… the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted."With this in mind you should select a location which you are going to be able to describe in detail to encourage (or not) your reader to visit.

  • Step 1: Prepare a list of possible travel experiences that you may wish to develop. You should choose a place that you know well. Remember that good travel writing should combine a number of facts for the prospective traveller including place names, prices and places of interest but should also allow your attitude or voice to come through about the place.
  • Step2:Once you have narrowed your selection of possible topics for description, develop a brainstorm that may include the branches: new & exciting experiences or things to do, what sightseers should check out, memorable characters that you met or that they should look out for, sights and sounds including entertainment options, accommodation, dining options and possibly weather considerations and practical tips.
  • Step 3: Being there is everything. You should think about how you can personalise the place for your reader. Will you include arrival and departure information, snippets of conversations you had or overheard, impressions of people and places, voices of history, to what extent the place matched your expectations or stereotypes associated with the place?Is your description going to be positive, indifferent or negative?
  • Think About: Are you going to write your review as a local expert or share your experiences as a tourist including the joys of getting lost, discovering hidden travel gems not on the map?
  • Are you targeting your description at a certain age group or demographic such as teenagers, eco-friendly tourists, families, adrenaline junkies, culture vultures or a little bit for everyone? Think about your angle (next page may help)
  • Research: By this point you should have decided what experience you are going to tell or sell. Ask yourself what facts you need to find out to give your writing credibility and then go and find them out. Some considerations may include: important dates/people associated with your place, admission prices etc. You should prepare your research material at home so that you are able to start writing next term.

Assessment Conditions:

  • As this is an internal standard you must complete all class work under teacher supervision. Please remember to leave all work in the class at the end of each period.
  • You will be given 8 periods to work on this during the first 2 weeks of term 2. Your teacher will check your brainstorm and plan after period 2and provide comments on your draft after the 4th period. You will then have 4 periods to write your final copy before being allowed to take home a photocopy of your final draft for typing. At this stage you are permitted to make spelling and punctuation changes only.

Achieved / Merit / Excellence
  • Develop, sustain and/or support idea(s).
  • Craft controlled writing which creates effects appropriate to audience, purpose and text type.
  • Structure material clearly in a way that is appropriate to audience, purpose and text type.
  • Use writing conventions accurately.
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  • Develop, sustain and/or support idea(s) convincingly.
  • Craft controlled and fluent writing which creates effects appropriate to audience, purpose and text type.
  • Structure material clearly and effectively in a way that is appropriate to audience, purpose and text type.
  • Use writing conventions accurately.
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  • Develop, sustain and/or support idea(s) convincingly, showing insight and/or originality.
  • Craft controlled and fluent writing which creates effects appropriate to audience, purpose and text type, and which commands attention.
  • Structure material clearly and effectively in a way that is appropriate to audience, purpose and text type and which achieves impact.
  • Use writing conventions accurately.

Examples of Excellence, Achieved and Not Achieved are available at or from your class wiki or teacher.

Merit – Curiosly Cuba

Often regarded as a magnet for weirdoes, Cuba Street is either a special place in people's hearts or an unwanted facial mole. There are a number of contributing factors to Cuba Street’s magnetism. Its location is everything. Intersecting Vivian Street at one end and Courtenay Place at the other enables Cuba Street to draw out Wellington’s diverse inhabitants, kept in check by even stranger people in yellow uniforms proudly declaring they are "Walkwise". Believing themselves to be the sole keepers of civil order in Cuba Street, they are charged with the duties no police officer would lower himself to. At night, “Walkwise” seem to have taken it upon themselves to be the sole vigilantes of this particular section of Te Aro

Daytime attracts just as many weirdoes, in varying degrees of sobriety, thanks again to Cuba Street’s location. Being within walking distance of the soap dodging AroValley and situated astride GloverPark, daytime attracts the filthy, filthy corduroy and dread sacks as well as the dirty denim and leather of the hippies and homeless. Clothing of all colours, sizes and kinds in varying stages of disintegration and filth can be found in Cuba Street. Shoes appear to be an optional extra.

Culture is also the name of the Cuba street game, and this is painfully obvious as you trip over various cafe tables, shop front signs for organic foods, and buskers with talents ranging from sock puppets to Chinese mandolin playing, alongside five piece acoustic bands that wow passerbys into bulging semi circles. Cuba Street’s shops also help to attract a diverse crowd. At first, the sheer number of almost identical shops that dot the street’s length seems overwhelming. No less then four tattoo and piercing studios adorn Cuba Street, contributing to the already unusual looking characters. You can choose to dine in one of the many kebab shops and play Russian roulette with food poisoning. Seasoned veterans of the street can tell you the shop with the best ‘food borne disease to kebab’ ratio, but just to be on the safe side you should probably go vegetarian.

In fact, finding meat while dining on Cuba Street may be harder than you imagine, as the AroValley soap dodgers must have brought their cuisine with them. Vegetarian cafes are more plentiful here then anywhere else in Wellington. Aunty Mena’s Cafe is almost entirely vegetarian, with only three or so dishes not being vegan. Aunty Mena’s offers some delicious dishes like deep fried vege balls, potato curries and vegan ice cream. There are also many surprises at Aunty Mena’s, like great tasting tofu.

Cuba Street can surprise the unwary driver. It is not technically a street, but a one way road that turns into a pedestrian only mall, then back into a one way street that has traffic going in the opposite direction. Soon this will be even more complex, as the Wellington Inner City Bypass dissects Cuba Street. This upper third of the street has the most memories for me. It will be sad to see the bypass right in front of Thistle Hall, the previously secluded venue where I attended my first concert. It will be sad to see the Freedom Shop pulled down and several of beautiful historical buildings of Te Aro sliced up and taken away. These buildings add to the charm and history of Cuba Street. Without them, we are left with the soulless mall outside Farmers and the drunken cess pool where Cuba intersects Vivian Street.

Regardless of drunks, hippies and food poisoning, Cuba Street is one of Wellington's finest assets. It is the heart of Wellington culture; no where in Wellington is there a more diverse range of foods, people, cultures and buildings. You can go to Cuba Street and eat food from all corners of the globe without consuming an animal. Afterwards you can be entertained by any number of buskers, or the timeless kitsch of the bucket fountain. Without Cuba Street, Wellington would have no soul, no culture and would simply lack one of its outstanding features.

Examples of Excellence, Achieved and Not Achieved are available at or from your class wiki or teacher.

A few tips:

A quick Google search for travel writing would have you believe that every person heading on their OE (overseas experience) is looking to finance their trip with travel writing such is the high number of sites. As such there’s a plethora of tips on what to include in a travel piece: here’s a few to consider.

  • Remember it’s about the writing not the location, so re-draft, re-draft, re-… (you get the idea)
  • NOBODY CARES WHAT YOU DID! But they enjoy a reading the story.
  • When starting your draft imagine yourself writing an e-mail to a friend describing the experience – include all of the bits like the car breaking down, not having enough bus fare, mosquitoes, sun stroke etc.
  • Dialogue. Travel writing is about the experiences of people, show us the personality of the bus driver, waitress/waiter in the café, etc
  • Think about your angle/approach. Paris or even Palmerston North is the place not the story – it’s your unique time there which we are interested in. What did you experience? Your angle might include adventure tourism? Parnell on $20 a day? Manurewa by night?, Auckland by bus? 12 hours in Huntly?
  • The planet’s quite old. The chances are pretty high that if you’ve been there someone else has been there and written about it too. Therefore, your piece needs to be original, personal and one that shares the magic and wonder or squalor of a place in a light, bright, breezy tone.
  • Personally, I think the best advice is to simply read lots of different pieces in the next few weeks and then try and emulate a style you like. GOOD LUCK!